This is part two of a two-part series. Read part one here. He calls himself the “patron saint of headbutts.” He loves sex, hates Nickelback, and enjoys sipping cervézas with @El_Danny_Trejo. His name is @GaryJBusey and his Twitter account isn’t verified. @GaryJBusey was started in 2009 by four commenters on the movie blog FilmDrunk. A […]

Handshake‘s Erica Sanderson recently sat down with foursquare‘s Jonathan Crowley to find out what he thinks goes into a good foursquare app. Check out the video above and watch for a full Q&A with Crowley in the September issue of Handshake Magazine. Be Sociable, Share! Tweet

This is part one of a two-part series. He calls himself the “patron saint of headbutts.” He loves sex, hates Nickelback, and enjoys sipping cervézas with @El_Danny_Trejo. His name is @GaryJBusey and his Twitter account isn’t verified. @GaryJBusey was started in 2009 by four commenters on the movie blog FilmDrunk. A love for crude humor […]

That’s been artist Len Peralta’s mantra since March when he started his odyssey, now in its 14th week. His mission is to interview one influential geek every week for a year, then chronicle these conversations with a trading card featuring each geek.

“The trading card is really a great vehicle because, as you know, geeks are really into collecting things,” Peralta says. “The card is kind of like proof that I was able to connect with that person in some kind of meaningful way.”

“C’mon ya yanks! C’mon ya yanks!” the fans sing. “C’monyayanks c’monyayanks c’monyayanks!” It’s a Wednesday afternoon in midtown Manhattan, and a small group of fans are watching a soccer game. Their side, the U.S. men’s national team, is playing against (and losing to) the Netherlands. All the while, two cameramen quietly move about the bar […]

Steve Moore, aka The Mad Drummer, has been beating the drums since he was just a kid. He has recently gained notoriety on Youtube. A video featuring Steve’s wild drumming has received nearly 2.5 million hits.

For swooning teen girls, there are the hairless-chested vampires of Twilight. For college English students, the wizardry of Hogwarts Academy is prime. The nerdsters have robots. The hipsters have the beats.

But for a certain group of researchers, nothing can be more alluring than the tasty study of that great, brain-chomping, ankle-biting, blood-spewing,
walking dead device — the zombie.

He reads an article in The New York Times science section, and he wonders: How does this relate to my research? He wants to know how the decomposition of human bodies works. His Twitter account whirls a constant stream of scientific dis- covery: Reuters updates, Science Daily blurbs, The National Science Foundation an- nouncements. He wonders what happens to the eye if a person never blinks, so he calls the head of the American Academy of Optometry.

He reads an article from the BBC News on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease), and it gets him thinking about viruses, incubation periods, the effects on the brain, so he calls the Scripps Research Institute. When he calls another researcher, he introduces himself.

His name is Matt Mogk, and he is the founder of the Zombie Research Society.

A group of junior high school boys huddles in the corner of the lunchroom. Before them lie piles of cards covered in paintings of monsters, wizards, and strange landscapes.

The boys talk softly and in terms few outsiders can understand. Their eyes dart left, right, down the hall, and then back to their cards. They look like a clan of pubescent meerkats, anxious that a bully might roam the halls. Or a girl.

Anyone who grew up in the 1990s probably passed by (or took part in) a card game like this. The game was Magic: The Gathering. And it was the biggest thing since Pogs

As the Internet brings the art of live action role-playing games onto mainstream America’s radar, should everyone get to play? When Aaron Vanek joined Enigma Live Game Lab in Los Angeles in 1989, live action role-playing groups were in their infancy. Vanek remembers games as strictly regional. The Internet changed all that. And the resulting […]

The foursquare mayor of the Holy Cacao drinks for free. The Austin, Texas, dessert shop peddles its confectionary wares out of a short, yellow trailer, but for the mayor, the thick, $4, European-style hot chocolate is gratis. On the other side of Lady Bird Lake, the troupe that holds residence in the Hideout Theatre offers […]